VW e-Golf Was #1 Selling BEV In Western Europe In January

Volkswagen e-Golf surprised us with its January sales in Western Europe – not by its result – but rather by the fact that it managed to outsell all other BEVs.

2017 Volkswagen e-Golf

In total, some 1,864 e-Golf were registered – more than Renault ZOE (1,847) and the BMW i3 (1,767 non-REx).

The Renault ZOE apparently is production constrained, but still it’s not often we get to see the e-Golf in the #1 spot on any sales list.

“First signs that a change at the top of Europe’s now closely monitored electric car sales chart may be looming on the horizon came from AID’s exclusively compiled car sales figures for January showing that Volkswagen’s e-Golf has already nudged aside Renault’s ZOE, the long-standing number one in the region’s now closely monitored electric car sales chart.”

We expect that for the upcoming months, maybe even in February, the top selling crown will be taken over by the second generation 2018 Nissan LEAF.

I wonder if by June, Tesla will be the major seller in Europe?
Europe accounts for some 40% of MS/MX sales. If similar for M3, and M3 hits 5000 / week by june, then something like 8000 / month just to Europe

Just so we are clear …. this car is basically UNOBTAINIUM in North America.

Other than that, it makes sense it sell well where you can get it without waiting almost 12 months … I am going to say that there’s not a better 30kWh-ish car in that budget class (drives very well, good interior overall and comes in the most practical hatch-back format). Simply the best … repeating myself, if you can get it reasonably fast where you live.

The production must be constrained on more than one front, or perhaps, it’s simply just the darn batteries they don’t have in large enough volume …. since they focus on Golf replacement, and as such e-Golf is just two-year stop gap.

If the new platform is as good as e-Golf without significant price increase, the VW haters will have to shut up at some point, right?

I just read a winter range test in Norway exactly for budget cars. The 2018 Leaf was no better than the e-Golf, despite the bigger battery. And the Ioniq beat both the 36 kWh VW and the 39,5 kWh (both gross capacity!) Nissan despite having just 28 kWh (net capacity) to play with.

In summer the new LEAF will maybe have a slight edge. But a car is much more than its range. The e-Golf is a really nice car.

As for “nearly 12 months” waiting to get one, that’s the same in Europe, at least here in Norway. By the way, yesterday it was exactly 2 years since I paid 10,000 NOK (then about $1200) to reserve something called the Model 3. And it’s STILL “nearly 12 months” to wait IF things go smoothly from here. But things never go smoothly with Tesla, and we all know there’s something niffy about their relationship to time.

But now I need to be at work in just a Tesla minute (an hour or two), so I’ll end here…

I live in northern California. Last weekend my wife and I test drove a Kia Soul EV, an e-Golf, and a 2018 Leaf SV, with the thinking based on budget and range that we were testing “good”, “better” and “best.” (Our ’04 Cici Hybrid’s NiMH battery had just quit so we needed something new.)

We were surprised by the e-Golf. Despite being technically slower than the Leaf, we thought it the most pleasant to drive of the three by a pretty wide margin. Sure, the Leaf out-specs the e-Golf in many ways — range, active safety features, rear legroom, but it just felt kind of blah to drive and I thought the visibility out the front was poor. Even my wife (who doesn’t usually put much stock in driving dynamics) thought it was the clear winner of the three.

The next day we leased a new e-Golf SE. It may not be the right choice for everyone, but don’t judge what you haven’t driven!

Given it’s in Norwegian, you can at least get a weird sort of translation from Google translate.

The e-golf is quite nice. It may not be best in so many categories, but it scores high in each and every one. It has no category where it scores low.
Most EVs do that. They may look weird, or butt ugly. They may have cheap interior with cheap hard plastic everywhere. The seats may be cheap, with bad comfort. They may be rust buckets. Ride comfort may be on the cheap side, since after the battery they have little money to design and build the rest of the car. They may have terrible range in winter (and summer).
The e-golf is good in all categories.

I drive the BMW i3 as a work car, and I love it. It looks kind of weird, but it grows on me. The new model in black looks cool now (in my eyes). Beside the not normal looks, the rest is top. Handling, speed, interior, technology behind it is impressive, the EV with the smallest environmental impact and so on.. but if they would have made it with the looks of the e-golf, they could have made a lot more (if they had the capacity).
I see lots of e-golf and i3s every day. I’ve not met an owner that is not happy with these cars.

Only in the US, since some European countries (like Norway) put taxes on the range extended version, and sell the pure BEV tax free. There are thousands of the pure EV version, and almost no with the range extender.

No wonder. You can get a total discount of about 15k€ alltogether on the list price of an e-Golf in Germany. And it’s still a convenient car, including many driving assistance features and the “magic” front light. And you can mount a regular tow hitch.

It is a great EV, I would have loved to get one here in Canada but they are not to be found. All preorders for 2018 are full and no more orders being taken, just spots for potential 2019 deliveries in Canada. Which won’t happen since VW will change over next year to new EV ID line and start production in later 2019.

E-Golf was a stop-gap measure to dig VW out of the hole and back on track towards the EV light. A great car mind you!